~ If the Shoe Fits…

Ninjago Mania

When Grasshopper asked if he could be a ninjago lego guy for Halloween, I casually responded with a “sure buddy”.

Little did I know that our quest to find the perfect costume would lead me through the aisles of Dollar Tree and Menards. As my Irish luck would have it (thank you, Murphy’s Law), there were no store-bought ninjago costumes to be had. Never fear, Pinterest Woman is here (and you KNOW she can make her own cape out of toilet paper if necessary!).

Seriously, this mom (Mindy L) is a genius! Although there are no as-you-go tutorial pictures to use as a guide, she does a fantastic job describing the step by step process. Nevertheless, I’m lazy so we only focused on a helmet, body and hands. My kid is crazy clutzy like his mommy so we decided that less is best when it comes to his legs!

Just as the amazing genius woman describes, we used a laundry basket from Dollar Tree and a cheap plastic bowl. I’m not gonna lie–cutting the bottom out of the laundry basket was a real job. I *might* have cursed under my breath multiple times. But then I just grabbed that sticky wonderfulness of duct tape and merged the two together.

Next, I cut out the lego shape body from a cardboard box. Thank goodness my hubby hoards boxes as this one was a moving box (we moved over a year and a half ago but who is counting?). I’d like to say that I measured the width of my son’s shoulders before cutting but alas, I do everything the hard way. My “just lay down on the cardboard and I’ll mark it” tactic was met with dismal results. After a fitting, I had to cut down the box on both sides so that it would stay up on his shoulders. The shoulder straps were made out of my favorite stuff–duct tape!

I was out of luck (dang you, Murphy, you unlucky bastard) with finding the right shade of green duct tape so I settled on silver. No worries–I love me some spray paint! I headed out to the garage (otherwise known as my “craft area”) and gave the cardboard and helmet a good blast of emerald green paint. Who knew that cardboard would take so much more paint? In the end, I had to buy a second can to ensure adequate coverage.

Oh, those clever, clever hands. I found beer/pop koozies at Walmart for a buck and snapped up four. Again, with a few snips here and there, we were on our way. Black duct tape in hand, I gave those babies a good swaddling. My son simply slips them on over his shirt.

After the paint dried, the real fun began. Luckily, my folks were in town for a visit so my much more artistically talented dad taped the body details for me. He also drew the eyes on yellow posterboard paper and I taped them to the helmet.

Tomorrow my son will take to the hallways of his elementary school for the costume parade. Here’s praying the tape holds up! : )